Becoming Human
by DSieya
Summary: “Look who it is! Didn't I tell you?” A Hufflepuff who has taken refuge in the Room of Requirement finally sees his champion. [oneshot, dh spoilers]


_one thing that really got to me in the books was the wonder and excitement that harry just inspired in people due to his bravery and actions in dh. so this is such a case study. :) enjoy._

* * *

He remembers quite a few things about his childhood. His mother. Hogwarts. Tales of the extraordinary, and the truth.

All gone.

The only thing this seventh-year Hufflepuff has left is this Room, and the hammock, and the friends he's made by simple necessity of living.

Idly, with his legs stretched out and his hands forming a pillow behind his head, he watched the room: Seamus and Ernie were playing Gobstones on the floor; Neville was disappearing through the secret entrance toward the Hog's Head, as he's so apt at doing these days; Parvati Patil was doing her hair, plaiting it perfectly behind her back as her almond eyes laughed at something her sister was telling her.

The boy noticed that there were more Gryffindors in this room than anything else; he couldn't tell if it was out of loyalty to Harry Potter, who was their friend and in their House before he disappeared, or if it was the Gryffindor bravery that the Sorting Hat sang of for so many years now. He himself used to think that the traits described of the Houses were now obsolete; they were all just teenagers, living a routine life, where did you need bravery like Godric Gryffindor, or loyalty and fairness like Helga Hufflepuff?

Now he knew.

He turned his head, asking the Ravenclaw by the radio to turn it up. _Potterwatch _was on.

"...and, of course," 'River' was saying. "everyone is still reeling from the break-in at Gringotts, none of us can get enough about it. This is the stuff made for legends, and for those of you just tuning in, earlier today Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger broke into a high-security vault and escaped, literally, in a swirl of fire. That's right, according to an eyewitness, Potter made his grand escape on the back of a _dragon_--"

By now, everyone was silent; they had all heard the story as breaking news earlier that day—the radio was permanently tuned into _Potterwatch—_when they could barely understand Lee for he was screaming his excitement into the microphone. But all around the room, the Hufflepuff could still see the look of pride and wonder that was shining in everyone's faces.

To him, it was proof that Harry wasn't just hiding. The D.A. had spent long hours discussing it—whether Harry was running, but they all agreed that he must be up to _something_, because Harry Potter wasn't one to run. He remembered him. What the boy did during school, and the things he went through, but he just would bow his head and pushed through it. Even during his fifth year, where his popularity had reached an all-time low, he remembers that Potter became even more defiant... _If only we had listened to him then_, he thought ruefully.

Now, Harry Potter was an ideal. No one stopped to think about how a boy who wasn't incredibly brilliant in school managed to break into the invincible bank. No one saw him as human anymore, except perhaps those who were closest to him—some of the Gryffindors. Harry Potter was _Harry Potter_, someone to aspire to be, the Hero, the one that was going to pull them out of this mess, the one that would eventually return to Hogwarts to usurp the Carrows... everything that happened this year in this little club was done "For Potter". It became a slogan—sometimes, he couldn't tell if they were Dumbledore's Army or Potter's Army.

He wondered if this was how Potter felt when that Umbridge woman did her best to beat him down. Frustrated and angry, watching as the leadership of Hogwarts changed into a tyranny. Did Harry Potter feel this way, being part of the resistance? Proud? Hardened? The Hufflepuff hadn't been part of the first D.A., only the one led by Neville, Ginny, and Luna, the latter two of which were gone...

His mother.

That was where it started for him.

Early November, he remembered. November the fifth. The day the Death Eaters, the cowards, broke into his home and murdered his Muggle mother while his half-blood father was out; Dad was later ambushed and shipped to Azkaban. It was the taunts and jeers that day from the Slytherins that notified him to this piece of news at breakfast. He remembers throwing all the food back up, but not much more after that.

_Loyalty, said his House. Loyalty, fairness, acceptance. Well I'm damn sure about where my loyalties lie._

Those three ideals. That's what forced him to live in this haven, this prison. Loyalty to those ideals, and therefore loyalty to Harry Potter for what he so long had stood for in the wizarding community. Loyalty that shot out of the end of his wand during a Muggle Studies class in May, covering Alecto Carrow's face in the boils she had been telling them all Muggles were simply _covered _with.

"...and the next password will be Gringotts, in light of recent events. Keep each other safe: Keep faith. Good night."

The program stopped, and the room started buzzing again. Not one could stop talking about Gringotts, but the boy preferred to lay on his hammock, in his thoughts. He barely registered the creek of the door that came from Aberforth's in Hogsmeade; he watched as Neville clambered out, with a gigantic smile stretched across his bruised face.

"Look who it is!..."

The space between the first and second sentence seemed to take forever; those first four words snapped his attention... at once, the boy knew who it was, who it was going to be. He didn't quite now how to react as the beginnings of an eruption started around him... he realized that despite all of his hoping and "knowing" that Harry Potter would save Hogwarts, his expectations of their hero remained merely idealistic, a far-off vision, like the contemplation of God. Not a reality; not flesh, hair, blood, breath.

"...Didn't I tell you?"

And Harry Potter stepped into the room.

---

_Tell me, is something eluding you, sunshine?  
Is this not what you expected to see?_

"In The Flesh?"  
Pink Floyd: The Wall


End file.
